The Walls
by FMAotaku101
Summary: Listening in on our conversations, giving us words of silence. Sinking deep into our problems, and only coming out until they are solved. This is what the soul of Alphonse Elric must face. Holds in his tears. For none can ever be released…
1. The Truth Lies in a Bleak Reality

The Walls

Chapter One-The Truth Lies in a Bleak Reality

Listening in on our conversations, giving us words of silence. Sinking deep into our problems, and only coming out until they are solved. Leaving us claustrophobic. Only opening when we claw and teeth at it.

Our breath wearing thin, suffocating us, we fall victim to our own greed.

The walls are now painted, coat after coat with every rumor, every lie, every sin we commit. Toxic fumes drag us to the door of hell, and we fall onto the floor while the walls remain standing.

This is what the soul of Alphonse Elric must face. Moreover, he bears it. Holds in his tears. For none can ever be released…

‡ † † ‡

Now I know what an oyster feels like, bundled up in its hard shell. Hiding its inner core. Lamenting every single moment of my life. But there is not a single person who can console me.

My gaze moseyed over to the blonde-haired person across the room. Her name was Winry Rockbell. My closest friend since my day of birth.

She lifted up her rusted tools with her delicate hands. Those metal objects her treasures. I wonder if she thinks a metal case filled with the soul of a youngling is a treasure.

Metallic liquid covered her nimble fingers as she chafed away some dried paint from a metal plate to reveal a glossy surface.

Curious blue eyes of the girl wander over to the cold being the holds the soul of Alphonse Elric captive. Otherwise known as the younger brother of the famous child prodigy; The Full Metal Alchemist, Edward Elric.

You would think that one would be as they say 'jumping for joy' to have such a talented older brother. He would be a loving as a father and as strict as a mother.

Well would your older brother commit a transmutation that risked both of your lives? Would her try to resurrect your deceased mother from the grave?

We defiled her bones and shook the dirt out of her amber hair.

The hum of two pairs of hands slapping together echoed throughout the sound barrier. The pitter-patter of rain droplets slithering down the foggy glass window was the only other sound that was available at the time.

Little Winry was in her grandmother's home. The smell of welcoming homemade cookies seeped through the cracks of the foundation. Winry sat by the fireplace, on the wool-stitched rug and stroked her doll. The doll was a gift for her birthday, Edward and I transmuted it ourselves. Our first accomplishment. We realize that would not be our last, however, this had defiantly not been one of our brighter days.

The doll was small yet detailed to ever extent. The russet hair was short and had evenly woven bangs in the front. A salmon colored dress complimented the pink ribbons in the figurine. Black round beads were shown as eyes and held a wide smile.

This doll held the smile we once had. Now we only carry own frowns. It is less cumbersome; us traveling folk prefer to travel light.

The last thing I remember as a human boy, was the throbbing agony of my sides being split open by the obscure shadow of diminutive hands. I see smiles that shine with a blinding radiance of woe and misery. I shrieked in horror. Tears bulged out of my eyes and stained my now transparent cheeks.

In the distance, I hear my name from a slightly wavered voice. I look up with what left of my pupils and see aniki's hand shoving its way towards me. I lift my naked arm up and stretch it to the best of my ability. But instead of feeling the warmth of my brother's grip, I feel my skin breaking off into flakes. Little squares transforming into dust particles smaller than a grain of sand.

Using all of my will power and then some, I restrain myself from whimpering. But the tears wouldn't cease from flowing from my sclera.

Being torn apart into nothingness. Was that really our price for crossing over into God's domain? Our punishment for burdening ourselves with the leaden sin.

I felt my insides caving in. I wanted to throw it all up, even though the stench of vile wastes would fill my lungs-if they were still there. For I was too preoccupied choking on air.

I placed my index finger, thumb, and the leftover space of my palm to my chest. To my heart. I expected to hear the quicken ace of the object that kept me animate. _Bu-bump….Bu-bump…..bu-…_Then silence. My eyes widened thinking that I may have gone deaf. Then my sight gave way…but I realized that my eyelids had sealed shut. And my breath was no longer heard.

That was all I could remember.

‡ † † ‡

"Onse….Alphonse!" I sprang to life upon hearing the child-like voice of my childhood friend. I looked up at her, and my joints creaked. Looked like I needed some oil in those tight spots.

I looked up at Winry. Her cheerful face was coated with a layer of concern for me. "Winry," I sighed her name "you'll get wrinkled if you keep your brow all scrunched up like that."

Her probing deep sapphire eyes pierced though my shell and onto my transmutation circle embedded on my doll-like armor. "Well you were a bit motionless over there, sounded like I was talking to myself all this time."

My jagged helmet tilted to the side. "You were chatting to me?" Winry's hand suddenly formed into the shape of a tightened fist. With a monkey wrench in one hand and her strength in the other, I tried my best to clean up my sentence. I didn't want dire consequences.

"Forgive me Winry, my mind went off on a bit of a tangent." I placed my hands together as if I were going to follow through with a transmutation. I no longer need to draw a circle after all. I can transmute with just a touch of my hollow gloves. Just like Ni-san.

"Well at least you have your apologetic streak still intact. Ed wouldn't even dream of admitting he was ignoring me. He does all the time anyway that I have gotten use to it.

"Don't say that Winry. Ni-san always pays attention to you. More that me actually. He's got a bit of a soft spot for you." I saw Winry's cheeks tint in color. If I could smile I would be doing so right now. But I do manage a chuckle. For I can imagine Edward sneezing a bit then acting all high and mighty.

‡ † Somewhere in the North Briggs† ‡

"ACHOO" A dirty blonde-haired male erupts in a earth shattering sneeze. "Shut up squirt you'll cause an avalanche. Then you'll have to pay all the finances." The prodigy known as Edward Elric-The Full Metal Alchemist lifted his finger to his nose to stop from sneezing again. "Armstrong, I'm rich! Money trouble is nothing for a genius like moi! Ha-ha and me sneezing right here and now means that my public is calling to me!" Edward Elric strides in the snow trying to make his short paces seem like a long ones. "You stupid idiot. You probably just caught a cold."

‡ † Rush Valley† ‡

"Just thinking about it makes me giggle." I mutter. "What was that?" Winry called from the front. "Nothing!" I say on a quick beat. I get up from my quiet spot by the door and watch as the sun shines down on the auto mail shop. It revealed little dust specks that laid unseen to the naked eye.

This was indeed a auto mail shop. Prosthetic limbs hung from every corner of the ceiling. Scraps of metal and iron were fixated in plies on the floor, collecting nothing but grime and filth. The place had the scent of gasoline splattered all around. Like it was some sort of fragrance that consumed everything in its path.

I felt like an inertia tin can who sighs because even though he has lost his place in the world long ago, he will forever suffer on the earth. Walking endlessly, into nothingness. Never being able to reach his one true goal. To get his body back.

"Alphonse!" a strident voice erupted from the walls of the sound barrier. That followed a noise banging on my armor bending it horribly. "Winry! My armor, how could you do this to my armor!?" I rubbed the dented area gently while trying to push it back up into its original form. Alas, even with my newfound strength, I was either not able to or too afraid to fix what was broken.

"Oh calm yourself you big worrywart. Ill have it fixed in a jiffy." A sweat drop of sarcasm appeared at the back of my head. Winry's slang was indeed….unique. She strode over my side, and plopped down onto the floor cased with a layer of muck. But that muck seemed like a saccharine filled heaven…just not the edible kind.

"I'll be done in a snap 'kay? I nodded perplexed by her Japanese. I thought it was pure gibberish. With a few light taps of her hand and a pair of pliers she did indeed have me 'fixed up in a jiffy.' "There see? You should trust me more kiddo. Any who I gotta run back to work, so you can stick around here for a bit or see the sights in town for few until its chow time. Peace out!" She held up her index finger and her middle finger to form a v-shape. At least I knew what that meant.

I sighed and watched Winry as she settled down in a wooden, splinter-filled stool to resume her daily work of the average mechanic. Her blonde hair was tied and held back with a lavender bandana. However, two strands of flaxen hair managed to sneak past the clutches of the mauve cloth and frame her face. Her locks reached all the way down to her mid-back and rested their, comfortable in its current position.

Her azure colored eyes were concentrating on the scrap of metal in her possession. Her motto was stereotypical. Ones mans trash is another mans treasure. She can take any wisp of iron and turn it into a metal masterpiece. Her tender hands held a sturdy grip and her eyes sparkled to no end when anything mechanical came into mind.

Getting up from my spot on the ground I pace my steps, the non-stop clanking of my footsteps echoed on the aged planks. Pushing away the dusty curtains with much haste, tying to avoid an allergic reaction. However I realize that my body is not longer able to produce such an action. I release a sigh of grief as I head out into town. The sun beating down on my armor, making me feel a bit uneasy…


	2. A Time to Break Down, Time to Build Up

The Walls

Chapter Two- A Time to Break Down, and a Time to Build Up

****

1342 hours

Stepping outside, a gust of wind carries the string-like material gathered at the tip of my bulky helmet. I gaze upon the sight before me. Rush Valley it was named. Located in the Country of Ametris, my homeland. I sigh heavily, and it echoes through my non-existent carcass.

When I thought about it I realized, this country was the worst of them all. We started the War in Ishbal and we ended it in an uncanny way. The taste of blood and soil covered our mouth until not even our saliva could conceal the substance.

Soldiers large and small, alchemists to the most diminutive military dog had blood boiling beneath their veins. Roasting from the heat and intensity of the glaring ball of chemically enhanced gas. Sweat building up over a period of time, then being brushed away by an arm plastered with gun powder.

Their bodies slashed and torn by the Incoming grenades and gun shots that grazed them. Dried blood mixed with the dust encircling them. But still unsure of whether that dust is hazardous smoke or harmless specks of dust that fills the air. Nevertheless, as human beings they needed the oxygen the air provided for them. They were caught in a mouse trap.

Unlike me of course. I have no need for things like oxygen or food. I am nothing but a soul preserved in the most eerie was possible. I have no purpose here on the vast wasteland we call planet Earth. Maybe my purpose to not have a purpose. Or maybe to be poked and probed for the rest of my existence.

Come to think of it, how long will I live? Now that I wont have a body that might turn into a decaying corpse, will I live for an eternity? Who knows, maybe my body is still out there somewhere. Trapped behind the doors of the hidden truth. What reveals everything ugly stored peacefully behind a mirror of beauty.

Maybe its rotting away. Maggots eating the flesh off of arms and legs. Picked their teeth with my bones. Licking the blood and sucking me dry. Until my meager heart ebbs away and a black vast hole fills the empty dark space.

I shake my iron scrap that I use for a head and focus my attention towards the panorama that has been laid before me by weathering and erosion. Wind carving away at the mountains endlessly until the final grain of sand passes by and causes it to collapse. Water is vast around these parts. In Rush Valley, the only kind of liquid would be oil for polishing and fixing creaking joints, and the sweat on a mechanics back.

I take minor steps, strolling along the dirt road paved by passing horses and the inhabitants who huskily heaved shovels, obtained blisters now and then. The people here are used to hard labor. Most are mechanics, like Winry. Their was a plethora of tools spoiled with oxidation. But that's what added a homely touch to this town. Everyone was happy. They helped one another without a second thought, nor wishing silently for anything in return.

I silently swayed back and forth…well not silently. The squeaking of my joints moaned throughout the musky worksite. Hundreds of nifty mechanics portrayed themselves as blood hounds, and came in an instant whenever a tune up was required. These people may have been friendly, but most of them were not cheap. I guess friendship always has a price.

Suddenly the citizens around me paused from their daily routine to sniff the odd odor that encircled them. Oxygen was replaced with, by the looks on the humans faces, an acrid scent. I guess the metal body of rust does come in handy. You only carry two of the five senses one would normally have. I guess I can be considered lucky right now. Especially since the sky throughout Rush Valley was becoming contaminated with poisonous gas.

It was mustard gas. The ones they used during trench warfare. A stupid thing it was. People are breathing in the air and within a single breath, you feel the intensity of a thousand suns racing through your veins. Your pulse quickening as your blood boils. Pumping more and more blood to your heart. It tears you insides to shreds, burning what's left of it to a crisp smaller tan the maggots that will consume your leftovers, if there is anything left.

You feel your head throbbing vigorously, clutching your temples as you take a breath to exhale a blood curling scream. Your lungs turn more black than a smoker of forty years. You sight becomes dim and faded, even for a person with twenty-twenty vision. But there is no one there to assist you, for they are all undergoing the same thing.

Now this is the time when I wish I was deaf and blind. Caterwauling, screaming, shrieking all echo throughout my hallow body. I want to help I truly do. But what can I do. There are only so many people I am able to carry with my large figure, but what about all the others? Will I just abandon them? What of their families? What if these mothers and fathers have lively children waiting for them at home? What were they to do? Should I select random people to take to a safe haven? How can I select only a limited few? And whose to say that the people that I chose will survive anyways? It has already been enough time for the gas to settle into their systems. They are suffering an unfortunate fate.

Or should I just put them out of their misery all together?

I could couldn't I? With my ability to transmute things with the simple tap of my fingers, just like nii-san, I could kill then all with one swift stroke. They would be dead within half a heartbeat. No more pain. No more suffering. They could all die peacefully. But…wouldn't I be a murderer? Killing all these innocent people. With warm welcomes awaiting them at the end of their shift I couldn't do that to them. I couldn't be a murderer.

But then again. If I were to let them die here, wailing in agony, wouldn't those warm welcomes slowly turn cold? The temperatures slowly crawl to the bottom of the thermometer and the hearts of many will freeze in time, and the spring will not thaw it out. As the clock ticks away moments of their precious lives I ponder myself with much haste. To kill or not to kill.

Then I chuckle.

And that lone chuckle turns into petite fits of laughter. I am laughing in spite of myself. In spite of my thoughts. And in spite of my final decision.

Blood. all I see is blood. I keep laughing over and over. My self control has give way to the snickering beast inside of me. I pause for a moment just before my nimble fingers touch the ground. I look up at the sight in front of me…and giggle.

My hands slam against the hard-packed soil.

Blue lightning shimmers against the dazzling sun. Red liquids spews from the many figures below me. Some of it gets on my tin mass. It splashes on me like freshly mixed paint. I lift my hands up to the sky and it covers the sun. My hands enclose, then reopen.

I knew at that moment, I would never return to my old body again.

Nor my old self.


End file.
